Children's Week is finally here! With so many pets available, this is perhaps the most anticipated event for collectors. And this year gives us the addition of all-new Children's Week achievements! Unfortunately, there are no new Northrend pets as of yet. But we're still keeping our fingers crossed in the hopes that new Northrend quests may be available after next Tuesday's maintenance. After all, there was a Curious Gorloc Hatchling and a Curious Wolvar Pup data mined from the patch 3.1 PTR, so we won't give up hope just yet.

For you achievement-seekers, here's a tip: If you turn in either of your orphan whistles (i.e., complete the quest chains) BEFORE you've earned the various achievements, such as the School of Hard Knocks, just talk to the matron to receive a replacement whistle.

Finally, we recommend that you check out our Guide to Children's Week. This guide features a detailed FAQ and complete walkthroughs and maps for every quest, both alliance and horde.

NEW FEATURE! Members of WarcraftPets are now able to find others on their server via our new member search! This powerful feature allows you to find pet collectors by region, realm and faction. You can also more easily find your friends when you search for them by username. To begin taking advantage of this new tool, you'll want to update your account with your character name, region, realm, and faction.

To coordinate in-game trades, cross-faction deals, and pet collecting runs with others on your server, you need to be found! We offer several tips to help you get noticed. Be sure to give them a read.

Out With the Old...
Implementing this feature took some time. Originally I'd hoped to have it up by early 2009. But to do it right, I wanted to weave it into existing features. In addition to member profiles, realm data can now be seen on other popular pages, like our latest comments and Top 50 Collections list.

To make way for the new, a few older features had to get the boot. Our index of site members was removed, as was the ability to track your location. If you'd like to keep your location on file, feel free to add it to your bio.

Limitations
For now, we're only able to support US and EU realms. A few EU realms that use foreign language sets, such as Russian, are also not supported. This is due to language barriers and limitations of our site-building software.

Additionally, remember that the full power of this tool won't be realized until thousands of members have had the chance to update their accounts with their realms. Be patient. Good times lie ahead!

Special Thanks
I'd like to extend a special thanks to my wife who, despite her lack of programming knowledge, took the time to help me with some of the most tedious coding. I'd also like to thank our MVPs—the recent influx of donations has been both uplifting and inspiring. Again, thank you.

MMO Champion reports a new pet, Grunty the Murloc Marine! He's an adorable orange murloc in a Starcraft marine suit, complete with C-14 Impaler gauss rifle. And that powerful weapon isn't just for show! While idle, this little fellow will occasionally start firing, shooting out flames and scattering bullet casings everywhere (check out the video).

UPDATE: Blizzard has confirmed that this new pet will be given out to people who attend BlizzCon 2009 or purchase the BlizzCon Pay Per View via DIRECTV or Internet stream. A blue post confirms that purchasers of either Pay Per View option will receive the in-game item. Yay! Additionally, a Blizzard rep had this say for our international pet collectors:

Q: Will people outside of the United States be able to purchase the online stream and receive the in-game pet?A: Yes, but there may be some limitations on countries that can do this. We will post more details regarding this when the online stream is available for purchase.

According to MMO Champion, Patch 3.1.2 will contain new Battle-Bots. Details are scarce and we don't know if this new "pet" will actually qualify as a true vanity pet. It seems that, unlike other pets, the Battle-Bot will have its own special items to be used with it: Blue Battle Fuel and Red Battle Fuel. These fuels appear to be related to the two new WoW-inspired flavors of Mountain Dew Game Fuel.

Last October, I created a Cafepress store to sell T-shirts and other sundries to help support the cost of running this site. Merchandise included the WarcraftPets logo and some other pet-related artwork. At the time, I had seen other fansites selling similar items using their own artwork based on Blizzard’s creations. I mistakenly took this as a sign that selling such merchandise was acceptable without fully reviewing Blizzard's copyright and trademark policy.

Since that time, I remained unaware that what I was selling was violating Blizzard's policy. Yesterday, for the first time since opening the store, I became aware of my dire mistake. I’ve been trying to put things right ever since.

As of today, all merchandise at the WarcraftPets store has been purged and the store itself has been permanently closed.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for what the people at Blizzard have created. Their works have been an ongoing inspiration to me for over a decade. Therefore, I take my lapse in judgment very seriously. I never intended any ill will by my actions. It is my sincere hope that I will continue to receive Blizzard’s blessing as I develop the WarcraftPets fansite, and in turn support an enthusiastic community of companion collectors.

In light of the store's closure, the 2nd place prize for our Ad-It-Up Contest has been replaced with a "second choice" variation of the 1st place prize.

For those of you who fought tirelessly in the 2009 Arena Tournament to complete 200 matches, your hard work has finally paid off! Our long-awaited pet reward, Murkimus The Gladiator, has made his in-game debut. If you haven't gotten yours yet, just check your in-game mail. This little guy was sent to all current characters of qualifying players. Unfortunately, it is BoP (not BoA as we had hoped) and will not be available to characters created in the future.

Now we just need to wait until after BlizzCon to see if Murkimus will try to duke it out with Grunty The Murloc Marine. Yay for more murloc pets!

Over the past week, I noticed a few articles and blogs (here's one at Wow.com) discussing my recent apology to Blizzard. I issued this apology last week for inadvertently violating their trademark policy through the merchandise sold at the WarcraftPets Store. As a result, I promptly closed the store. However, this seemed to trigger a lot of rumor and speculation on the part of the WoW community. So while I don't want to belabor the issue (believe me—I'd much rather forget it), I do want to set the record straight. So check out the Store Closure Q&A and find out what really happened and why.

We're thrilled to announce the winners of our recent Ad-It-Up Contest. All of us were super-impressed by the amazing array of creative and clever ads we received. There were nearly a hundred entries and it wasn't easy to select our top picks, but we think you'll agree that these three individuals have done an outstanding job!

We /congratulate our winners and we'd also like to /applaud everyone who participated in the contest. I've posted the Top 10 Runners Up and other honorable mentions in the Ad-It-Up Gallery. Check it out!

On a personal note, I'm very excited by the results of WarcraftPets' first major contest. I think you'll be seeing more contests from us in the future. Additionally, you'll eventually see a few of these ads (or variations thereof) helping to promote our site!